Snowshoe-rabbitt 639 



cessful) attempt at swimming can scarcely be imagined. He 

 literally hopped through the water, using only his hind-legs, 

 and kicking with such vigour that the whole forward part of his 

 body was raised above the surface at each stroke. Between 

 the strokes he would sink back until sometimes only the tip 

 of his nose was exposed. I fancy that an immense hull-frog, 

 weighted after the manner of Mark Twain's ' Dan'l Webster,' 

 would cut a somewhat similar figure. 



'This method of progression was naturally fatiguing, and 

 before the animal reached the opposite bank the strokes became 

 feebler and the intervals between them longer, until I began to 

 fear that the tired creature would be drowned. At length, 

 however, he struck bottom, and, loping across a stretch of 

 bare mud, disappeared in the woods. Such an appearance 

 as he presented on emerging from the water — the lankness of 

 his form revealed by the clinging and bedraggled fur, the ears 

 drooping, and the whole expression one of dejection and shame. 



'None of the guides or trappers of my acquaintance have 

 ever seen a Rabbit swim, although I have been told of an in- 

 stance where one was observed to take to the shallow water on 

 the margin of a pond and run through it for several hundred 

 yards before leaping again into the woods. The purpose of 

 this manoeuvre was apparent a moment later when a Sable 

 appeared on the Rabbit's track, and, following it to the 

 water's edge, lost it there. 



'On the occasion just described, however, no pursuer ap- 

 peared, nor do I think that this Rabbit entered the water under 

 compulsion, or for the purpose of obliterating the scent of his 

 tracks. On the contrary, the action was undertaken so delib- 

 erately, that I believe the animal to have been impelled by some 

 idle whim, merely — such as a desire to try fresh pasturage, or, 

 perhaps, to see what the world was like on the other side of the 

 stream. However this may be, the case is doubtless excep- 

 tional, for Lepus americanus ordinarily has as great an aversion 

 to the water as any house cat.'" 



"Nelson Harris, a well-known Adirondack hunter, tells 

 me that while still-hunting in Northern Michigan, a few winters 



